A Jab Of Good Health

Covid-19 vaccinations have gathered pace in india. But with the virus mutating and new variants being discovered, next-generation vaccines may be the need of the hour. Where does india stand?

- P. B. Jayakumar

As of now, India has approved six vaccines for use

VACCINE ROSTER

1 COVISHIELD Serum Institute of India

2 COVAXIN Bharat Biotech

3 SPUTNIK V Dr Reddy’s and six-eight other Indian companies

4 MRNA-1273 (MODERNA) Cipla (to import)

5 AD26.COV2.S (J&J) Biological E

6 ZYCOV-D Zydus Cadila

WHEN VASANT (VAS) Narasimhan, the global CEO of Novartis AG, met Business Today at the company’s India office in Mumbai on February 17, 2020, India had already reported the first cases of the Coronavirus. They were three medical students who had returned to their native Kerala from Wuhan in the Hubei province of China. At that point, 1,523 people had died of the outbreak in Wuhan. For most Indians, the Coronavirus was just another curious case of a new virus surfacing in the Far East or Africa. A week before that, on February 11, the World Health Organization (WHO) had baptised ‘Novel Coronavirus SARS-CoV2’ with a new name—‘Covid-19’— and was yet to declare the outbreak a ‘pandemic’.